-Olive-Pehcivm,- 


LOS  ANGELES 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 

WITH   OTHER  VERSES 


HAWTHORN      AND 
LAVENDER 


WITH  OTHER  VERSES 

by 

WILLIAM  ERNEST  HENLEY 


O,  how  shall  summer's  honey  breath  hold  out 
Against  the  wrackful  siege  of  battering  days? 

SHAKESPEARE 


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HARPER    &  BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 
NEW   YORK   AND   LONDON 


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Copyright,  1901,  by  Harper  &  Brothers. 


All  rights  reserved 
November,  igoi. 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 


CONTENTS 


DEDICATION:  Ask  me  not  how  they  came    . 

PROLOGUE:    These  to  the    glory   and    praise 

of  the  green  land 


*# 


HAWTHORN  AND  LAVENDER 

ENVOY:  My  songs  were  once  of  the  sunrise  . 
PRAELUDIUM:     In     sumptuous     chords,     and 

strange 

Low — low:  Over  a  perishing  after-glow  • 
Moon  of  half -candied  meres   ♦ 
The  night  dislimns,  and  breaks        .        • 
It  came  with  the  year's  first  crocus  . 

The  good  South- West  on  sea-worn  wings 
In  the  red  April  dawn  .... 
The  April  sky  sags  low  and  drear  .  • 
Shadow  and  gleam  on  the  Downland  . 
The  wind  on  the  wold  •  .  *  • 
Deep  in  my  gathering  garden  •  •  • 
What  doth  the  blackbird  in  the  boughs. 
This  world,  all  hoary  •  •  •  • 
I  talked  one  midnight  with  the  jolly  ghost 


* *  • 


v 

ix 

x 

•  0 

XII 

xiv 

xv 

xvi 

xvii 

xviii 

xix 

XX 

xxi 

xxii 

xxiv 


48 

ENGLISH 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 


and 


the 


CONTENTS 

Why    do    you    linger    and    loiter,   O   most 

sweet  ? 

Come  where  my  Lady  lies    .        . 
The   west   a   glory    of   green  and    red 

gold 

Look  down,  dear  eyes,  look  down 
Poplar  and  lime  and  chestnut        * 
Hither,  this  solemn  eventide  . 
After  the  grim  daylight         .        ♦ 
Love,  which    is   lust,   is   the    Lamp   in 

Tomb  .♦.♦♦. 
Between  the  dusk  of  a  summer  night 
I  took  a  hansom  on  to-day  .        ♦ 
Only  a  freakish  wisp  of  hair?       ♦ 
This  is  the  moon  of  roses      .        • 
June,  and  a  warm,  sweet  rain         ♦ 
It  was  a  bowl  of  roses  ♦        •        ♦ 
Your  feet  as  glad  ♦        .        .        • 
A  world  of  leafage  murmurous  and  a-t winkle 
I  send  you  roses — red,  like  love 
These  glad,  these  great,  these  goodly  days 
The  downs,  like  uplands  in  Eden, 
The  time  of  the  silence  .        ♦ 

There  was  no  kiss  that  day? 


xxv 
xxvii 

xxix 

xxx 

xxxi 

xxxii 

xxxiii 

xxxiv 

xxxv 

xxxvi 

xxxvii 

xxxix 

xl 

xli 

xlii 

xliii 

xliv 

xlv 

xlvi 

xlvii 

xlviii 


HAWTHORN  AND    LAVENDER 


$  CONTENTS 

Sing  to  me,  sing,  and  sing  again     ♦        . 
We  sat  late,  late — talking  of  many  things 
'Twas  in  a  world  of  living  leaves  . 
Since  those  we  love  and  those  we  hate 
These  were  the  woods  of  wonder 
"Dearest,  when  I  am  dead"     .        • 
Dear  hands,  so  many  times  so  much 
When,  in  what  other  life  ♦ 

The  rain   and    the  wind,   the  wind   an< 

rain 

He  made  this  gracious  Earth  a  hell 
O,  these  long  nights  of  days ! . 
In  Shoreham  River,  hurrying  down 
Come  by  my  bed  . 

Gray  hills,  gray  skies,  gray  lights    . 
Silence,  loneliness,  darkness        . 
So  let  me  hence  . 


FINALE :  A  sigh  sent  wrong 


the 


xlix 

1 

li 

lii 

liii 

liv 

Iv 

lvi 

lvii 
lviii 

lix 
Ix 

lxii 
lxiii 
lxiv 

lxv 

lxvii 


LONDON  TYPES 

BUS  DRIVER— He's  called  The  General    .        .       lxxi 

Life -Guardsman— Joy   of   the   Milliner, 

Envy  of  the  Line lxxii 


HAWTHORN  AND  LAVENDER 
i£  CONTENTS 

HAWKER— Far  out  of  bounds  he's  figured  .  Ixxiii 
BEEF-EATER  —  His     beat     lies    knee-high 

through  a  dust  of  story      .  lxxiv 

SANDWICH-MAN— An  ill  March  noon;  the 

flagstones  gray  with  dust  ♦  lxxv 

rLlZA — 'LIZA'S  old  man 's  perhaps  a  little  shady  lxxvi 
"LADY" — Time,  the  old  humourist,   has  a 

trick lxxvii 

BLUECOAT  BOY— So  went  our  boys  when 

Edward  Sixth,  the  King        .       .       .     lxxviii 

MOUNTED  POLICE— Army  Reserve;  a  wor- 
shipper of  "Bobs lxxix 

NEWS-BOY — Take  any  station,  pavement, 
circus>  corner       ♦♦♦♦.♦  lxxx 

DRUM-MAJOR— Who  says  Drum-Major        ♦         lxxxi 

FLOWER-GIRL  —  There 's    never    a    delicate 

nurseling  of  the  year lxxxii 

BARMAID— Though,  if  you   ask   her  name, 

she  says  ELISE lxxxiii 

EPILOGUE:  The  artist  muses  at  his  ease      .      lxxxiv 


THREE  PROLOGUES 

BEAU  AUSTIN — "To  all  and  singular"       .     Ixxxvii 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 
^CONTENTS 

RICHARD  SAVAGE— To  other  boards  for  pan 

and  song  and  dance!        .        ♦        .        .        .         xc 

Admiral  Guinea — Once  was  an  Age,   an 

Age  of  blood  and  gold xciii 

EPICEDIA 

Two  DAYS — That  day  we  brought  our  Beau- 
tiful One  to  lie xcix 

I.M .— Thomas  Edward  Brown— He  looked 

half-parson  and  half-skipper  ....  ci 

LM.  — George  Warrington  Steevens— 

We   cheered   you    forth  —  brilliant   and   kind 

and  brave •         cii 

LAST   POST  —  The   day's  high  work  is  over 

and  done ciii 

I.M.— REGINAE  DlLECTISSIMAE  Victoriae— 

Sceptre  and  orb  and  crown     ,        ♦        .        ♦         cv 

Epilogue— Into  a  land 

Storm-wrought,  a   place  of  quakes        cxi 


Ask  me  not  how  they  came, 
These  songs  of  love  and  death. 
These  dreams  of  a  futile  stage, 
These  thumb-nails  seen  in  the  street: 
Ask  me  not  how  nor  why, 
But  take  them  for  your  own, 
Dear  Wife  of  twenty  years, 
Knowing — O,  'who  so  well? — 
You  it  was  made  the  man 
That  made  these  songs  of  love, 
Death,  and  the  trivial  rest: 
So  that,  your  love  elsewhere, 
These  songs,  or  bad  or  good- 
How  should  they  ever  have  been  ? 

Worthing,  July  31,  1901. 


* 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 

PROLOGUE 

jj^HESE  to  the  glory  and  praise  of 
the  green  land 
[That  bred  my  women,  and  that 

holds  my  dead, 
\  England,  and  with  her  the  strong 
broods  that  stand 
Wherever  her  fighting  lines  are  thrust  or  spread! 
They   call   us  proud?  —  Look  at   our  English 

Rose! 
Shedders  of  blood  ? — Where  hath  our  own  been 

spared  ? 
Shopkeepers  ?  —  Our    accompt    the    high   God 

knows* 
Close  ? — In   our   bounty    half    the   world   hath 

shared. 
They  hate  us,  and  they  envy  ? — Envy  and  hate 
Should  drive  them  to  the  Pits  edge? — Be  it  so! 
That   race   is    damned    which   misesteems    its 

fate; 
And   this,   in   God's  good   time,  they  all  shall 
know, 
And  know  you  too,  you  good  green  Eng- 
land, then — 
Mother  of  mothering  girls  and  governing 
men! 


HAWTHORN   AND   LAVENDER 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 
ENVOY 

My  songs  were  once  of  the  sunrise : 

They  shouted  it  over  the  bar ; 
First-footing  the  dawns,  they  flourished, 

And  flamed  with  the  morning  star. 


My  songs  are  now  of  the  sunset : 

Their  brows  are  touched  with  light, 

But  their  feet  are  lost  in  the  shadows 
And  wet  with  the  dews  of  night. 

Yet  for  the  joy  in  their  making 
Take  them,  O  fond  and  true, 

And  for  his  sake  who  made  them 
Let  them  be  dear  to  You. 


\^  n 


111 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 

PRAELUDIUM  Largo  espressivo 

|N  sumptuous  chords,  and  strange, 
I  Through   rich   yet   poignant   har- 
monies : 
Subtle  and  strong  browns,  reds 
Magnificent   with   death   and   the 
pride  of  death, 
Thin,  clamant  greens 
And  delicate  yellows  that  exhaust 
The  exquisite  chromatics  of  decay: 
From  ruining  gardens,  from  reluctant  woods — 
Dear,  multitudinously  reluctant  woods! — 
And-  sering  margents,  forced 
To  be  lean   and  bare  and  perished  grace  by 

grace, 
And  flower  by  flower  discharmed, 
Comes,  to  a  purpose  none, 
Not  even  the  Scorner,  which  is  the  Fool,  can 

blink, 
The  dead-march  of  the  yean 


Dead  things  and  dying !     Now  the  long-laboured 

soul 
Listens,  and  pines.      But  never  a  note  of  hope 

Sounds 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 

Sounds:  whether  in  those  high, 

Transcending  unisons  of  resignation 

That  speed  the  sovran  sun, 

As  he  goes  southing,  weakening,  minishing, 

Almighty  in  obedience;  or  in  those 

Small,  sorrowful  colloquies 

Of  bronze  and  russet  and  gold, 

Colour  with  colour,  dying  things  with  dead, 

That  break  along  this  visual  orchestra: 

As  in  that  other  one,  the  audible, 

Horn  answers  horn,  hautboy  and  violin 

Talk,  and  the  'cello  calls  the  clarionet 

And  flute,  and  the  poor  heart  is  glad. 

There  is  no  hope  in  these — only  despair* 


Then,  destiny  in  act,  ensues 
That  most  tremendous  passage  in  the  score: 
When  hangman  rains  and  winds  have  wrought 
Their  worst,  and,  the  brave  lights  gone  down, 
The   low   strings,   the  brute  brass,  the  sullen 

drums 
Sob,  grovel,  and  curse  themselves 
Silent*  ♦  ♦  ♦ 

But  on  the  spirit  of  Man 

And 


VI 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 

And  on  the  heart  of  the  World  there  falls 
A  strange,  half-desperate  peace: 
A  war-worn,  militant,  gray  jubilance 
In  the  unkind,  implacable  tyranny 
Of  Winter,  the  obscene, 
Old,  crapulous  Regent,  who  in  his  loins — 
O,  who  but  feels  he  carries  in  his  loins 
The    wild,    sweet  -  blooded,    wonderful    harlot, 
Spring  ? 


VII 


• 


HAWTHORN   AND   LAVENDER 

i 

O  W— low 

Over  a  perishing  after-glow, 
A  thin,  red  shred  of  moon 
Trailed*    In  the  windless  air 
I  The  poplars   all  ranked  lean  and 
chill. 

The  smell  of  winter  loitered  there, 

And  the  Year's  heart  felt  still. 

Yet  not  so  far  away 

Seemed  the  mad  Spring, 

But  that,  as  lovers  will, 

I  let  my  laughing  heart  go  play, 

As  it  had  been  a  fond  maid's  frolicking ; 

And,  turning  thrice  the  gold  I'd  got, 

In  the  good  gloom 

Solemnly  wished  me — what? 

What,  and  with  whom  ? 


IX 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 
_  _ 

MOON  of  half-candied  meres 
And  flurrying,  fading  snows ; 
Moon  of  unkindly  rains, 
Wild  skies,  and  troubled  vanes ; 
When  the  Norther  snarls  and  bites, 
And  the  lone  moon  walks  a-cold, 
And  the  lawns  grizzle  o'  nights, 
And  wet  fogs  search  the  fold: 
Here  in  this  heart  of  mine 
A  dream  that  warms  like  wine, 
A  dream  one  other  knows, 
Moon  of  the  roaring  weirs 
And  the  sip-sopping  close, 

February  Fill-Dyke, 
Shapes  like  a  royal  rose — 

A  red,  red  rose ! 

O,  but  the  distance  clears  ! 
O,  but  the  daylight  grows ! 
Soon  shall  the  pied  wind-flowers 
Babble  of  greening  hours, 
Primrose  and  daffodil 
Yearn  to  a  fathering  sun, 
The  lark  have  all  his  will, 

The 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 

The  thrush  be  never  done, 
And  April,  May,  and  June 
Go  to  the  same  blythe  tune 
As  this  blythe  dream  of  mine! 
Moon  when  the  crocus  peers, 
Moon  when  the  violet  blows, 

February  Fair-Maid, 
Haste,  and  let  come  the  rose — 

Let  come  the  rose! 


21 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 

in 

The  night  dislimns,  and  breaks 

Like  snows  slow  thawn; 
An  evil  wind  awakes 

On  lea  and  lawn; 
The  low  East  quakes;  and  hark! 
Out  of  the  kindless  dark, 
A  fierce,  protesting  lark, 

High  in  the  horror  of  dawn! 


A  shivering  streak  of  light, 

A  scurry  of  rain: 
Bleak  day  from  bleaker  night 

Creeps  pinched  and  fain; 
The  old  gloom  thins  and  dies, 
And  in  the  wretched  skies 
A  new  gloom,  sick  to  rise, 

Sprawls,  like  a  thing  in  pain. 


And  yet,  what  matter — say! — 

The  shuddering  trees, 
The  Easter-stricken  day, 

The  sodden  leas? 

The 


XII 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 


The  good  bird,  wing  and  wing 
With  Time,  finds  heart  to  sing, 
As  he  were  hastening 

The  swallow  o'er  the  seas. 


X1I1 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 

IV 

It  came  with  the  year's  first  crocus 
In  a  world  of  winds  and  snows — 

Because  it  would,  because  it  must, 

Because  of  life  and  time  and  lust; 

And  a  year's  first  crocus  served  my  turn 
As  well  as  the  year's  first  rose. 


The  March  rack  hurries  and  hectors, 
The  March  dust  heaps  and  blows; 

But  the  primrose  flouts  the  daffodil, 

And  here's  the  patient  violet  still; 

And  the  year's  first  crocus  brought  me  luck, 
So  hey  for  the  year's  first  rose! 


xiv 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 

V 

The  good  South-West  on  sea-worn  wings 
Comes  shepherding  the  good  rain; 

The  brave  Sea  breaks,  and  glooms,  and  swings, 
A  weltering,  glittering  plain* 


Sound,  Sea  of  England,  sound  and  shine, 
Blow,  English  Wind,  amain, 

Till  in  this  old,  gray  heart  of  mine 
The  Spring  need  wake  again ! 


xv 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 

VI 

In  the  red  April  dawn. 

In  the  wild  April  weather, 
From  brake  and  thicket  and  lawn 

The  birds  sing  altogether. 


The  look  of  the  hoyden  Spring 

Is  pinched  and  shrewish  and  cold; 

But  altogether  they  sing 

Of  a  world  that  can  never  be  old: 


Of  a  world  still  young — still  young! — 
Whose  last  word  won't  be  said, 

Nor  her  last  song  dreamed  and  sung, 
Till  her  last  true  lover's  dead! 


xvi 


HAWTHORN   AND   LAVENDER 

vn 

The  April  sky  sags  low  and  drear, 

The  April  winds  blow  cold, 
The  April  rains  fall  gray  and  sheer, 

And  yeanlings  keep  the  fold* 


But  the  rook  has  built,  and  the  song-birds  quire, 

And  over  the  faded  lea 
The  lark  soars  glorying,  gyre  on  gyre, 

And  he  is  the  bird  for  me! 


For  he  sings  as  if  from  his  watchman's  height 

He  saw,  this  blighting  day, 
The  far  vales  break  into  colour  and  light 

From  the  banners  and  arms  of  May* 


XVII 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 

vm 

Shadow  and  gleam  on  the  Downland 

Under  the  low  Spring  sky, 
Shadow  and  gleam  in  my  spirit — 

Why? 


A  bird,  in  his  nest  rejoicing, 

Cheers  and  flatters  and  woos: 

A  fresh  voice  flutters  my  fancy — 
Whose  ? 


And  the  humour  of  April  frolics 

And  bickers  in  blade  and  bough- 

O,  to  meet  for  the  primal  kindness 
Now! 


XVlll 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 


IX 

The  wind  on  the  wold, 

With  sea-scents  and  sea-dreams  attended, 
Is  wine! 
The  air  is  as  gold 

In  elixir — it  takes  so  the  splendid 
Sunshine ! 


O,  the  larks  in  the  blue! 

How  the  song  of  them  glitters,  and  glances, 
And  gleams! 
The  old  music  sounds  new — 

And  it's  O,  the  wild  Spring,  and  his  chances 
And  dreams! 


There's  a  lift  in  the  blood — 

O,  this  gracious,  and  thirsting,  and  aching 
Unrest ! 
All  life's  at  the  bud, 

And  my  heart,  full  of  April,  is  breaking 
My  breast* 


xix 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 
X 

Deep  in  my  gathering  garden 

A  gallant  thrush  has  built; 
And  his  quaverings  on  the  stillness 

Like  light  made  song  are  spilt* 


They  gleam,  they  glint,  they  sparkle, 
They  glitter  along  the  air, 

Like  the  song  of  a  sunbeam  netted 
In  a  tangle  of  red-gold  hair. 


And  I  long,  as  I  laugh  and  listen, 

For  the  angel-hour  that  shall  bring 

My  part,  pre-ordained  and  appointed, 
In  the  miracle  of  Spring. 


xx 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 

XI 

What  doth  the  blackbird  in  the  boughs 

Sing  all  day  to  his  nested  spouse? 

What  but  the  song  of  his  old  Mother-Earth, 

In  her  mighty  humour  of  lust  and  mirth? 

"Love  and  God's  will  go  wing  and  wing, 

And  as  for  death,  is  there  any  such  thing  ?"  — 

In  the  shadow  of  death, 

So,  at  the  beck  of  the  wizard  Spring 

The  dear  bird  saith — 
So  the  bird  saith! 


Caught  with  us  all  in  the  nets  of  fate, 

So  the  sweet  wretch  sings  early  and  late; 

And,  O  my  fairest,  after  all, 

The  heart  of  the  World's  in  his  innocent  call. 

The  will  of  the  World's   with  him  wing  and 

wing : — 
"Life — life — life!     'Tis  the  sole  great  thing 
This  side  of  death, 

Heart  on  heart  in  the  wonder  of  Spring!" 
So  the  bird  saith — 

The  wise  bird  saith ! 


XX1 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 

XII 

This  world,  all  hoary 
With  song  and  story, 
Rolls  in  a  glory 

Of  youth  and  mirth; 
Above  and  under 
Clothed  on  with  wonder, 
Sunrise  and  thunder, 

And  death  and  birth. 
His  broods  befriending 
With  grace  unending 
And  gifts  transcending 

A  god's  at  play, 
Yet  do  his  meetness 
And  sovran  sweetness 

Hold  in  the  jocund  purpose  of  May. 

So  take  your  pleasure, 
And  in  full  measure 
Use  of  your  treasure, 

When  birds  sing  best! 
For  when  heaven's  bluest, 
And  earth  feels  newest, 
And  love  longs  truest, 

And  takes  not  rest: 

When 


XXII 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 

When  winds  blow  cleanest, 
And  seas  roll  sheenest, 
And  lawns  lie  greenest: 

Then,  night  and  day, 
Dear  life  counts  dearest, 
And  God  walks  nearest 

To  them  that  praise  Him,  praising  His  May. 


xxm 


HAWTHORN    AND   LAVENDER 

Xffl 

I  talked  one  midnight  with  the  jolly  ghost 
Of  a  gray  ancestor,  Tom  Heywood  hight ; 
And,  "Here's,"  says  he,  his  old  heart  liquor- 

lifted- 
"  Here's  how  we  did  when  Gloriana  shone:" 


All  in  a  garden  green 

Thrushes  were  singing; 
Red  rose  and  white  between, 

Lilies  were  springing; 
It  was  the  merry  May; 

Yet  sang  my  Lady: — 
Nay,  Sweet,  now  nay,  now  nay! 

I  am  not  ready," 


n 


Then  to  a  pleasant  shade 

I  did  invite  her: 
All  things  a  concert  made, 

For  to  delight  her ; 
Under,  the  grass  was  gay; 

Yet  sang  my  Lady: — 
"Nay,  Sweet,  now  nay,  now  nay! 

I  am  not  ready." 

xxiv 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 

XIV 

Why  do  you  linger  and  loiter,  O  most  sweet  ? 

Why  do  you  falter  and  delay, 

Now  that  the  insolent,  high-blooded  May 

Comes  greeting  and  to  greet  ? 

Comes  with  her  instant  summonings  to  stray 

Down  the  green,  antient  way — 

The     leafy,     still,     rose  -  haunted,     eye -proof 

street ! — 
Where  true  lovers  each  other  may  entreat, 
Ere  the  gold  hair  turn  gray? 
Entreat,  and  fleet 

Life  gaudily,  and  so  play  out  their  play, 
Even  with  the  triumphing  May — 
The  young-eyed,  smiling,  irresistible  May! 


Why  do  you  loiter  and  linger,  O  most  dear  ? 
Why  do  you  dream  and  palter  and  stay, 
When  every  dawn,  that  rushes  up  the  bay, 
Brings  nearer,  and  more  near, 
The  Terror,  the  Discomforter,  whose  prey, 
Beloved,  we  must  be?    Nor  prayer,  nor  tear, 
Lets  his  arraignment;  but  we  disappear, 
What  time  the  gold  turns  gray, 

Into 


XXV 


HAWTHORN    AND   LAVENDER 

Into  the  sheer, 

Blind  gulfs  unglutted  of  mere  Yesterday, 

With  the  unlingering  May — 

The  good,  fulfilling,  irresponsible  May! 


xxvi 


HAWTHORN    AND   LAVENDER 

XV  ~~ 

Come  where  my  Lady  lies, 
Sleeping  down  the  golden  hours  ! 
Cover  her  with  flowers. 

Bluebells  from  the  clearings, 

Flag-flowers  from  the  rills, 
Wildings  from  the  lush  hedgerows, 

Delicate  daffodils, 
Sweetlings  from  the  formal  plots, 

Bloomkins  from  the  bowers — 
Heap  them  round  her  where  she  sleeps, 

Cover  her  with  flowers! 

Sweet-pea  and  pansy, 

Red  hawthorn  and  white; 
Gilliflowers — like  praising  souls; 

Lilies — lamps  of  light: 
Nurselings  of  what  happy  winds, 

Suns,  and  stars,  and  showers! 
Joylets  good  to  see  and  smell — 

Colter  her  with  flowers! 


Like  to  sky-born  shadows 
Mirrored  on  a  stream, 


Let 


XXVII 


HAWTHORN   AND   LAVENDER 

Let  their  odours  meet  and  mix 

And  waver  through  her  dream! 

Last,  the  crowded  sweetness 
Slumber  overpowers, 

And  she  feels  the  lips  she  loves 
Craving  through  the  flowers  ! 


xxvm 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 

XVI 

The  west  a  glory  of  green  and  red  and  gold, 
The    magical    drifts    to   north    and    eastward 

rolled, 
The  shining  sands,  the  still,  transfigured  sea, 
The  wind  so  light  it  scarce  begins  to  be, 
As  these  long  days  unfold  a  flower,  unfold 

Life's  rose  in  me* 


Life's   rose — life's   rose!      Red   at   my  heart  it 

glows — 
Glows  and  is  glad,  as  in  some  quiet  close 
The  sun's  spoiled  darlings  their  gay  life  renew! 
Only,  the  clement  rain,  the  mothering  dew, 
Daytide  and  night,  all  things  that  make  the  rose, 

Are  you,  dear — you! 


XXIX 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 

xvn 

Look  down,  dear  eyes,  look  down, 

Lest  you  betray  her  gladness* 
Dear  brows,  do  naught  but  frown, 

Lest  men  miscall  my  madness. 


Come  not,  dear  hands,  so  near, 
Lest  all  besides  come  nearer. 

Dear  heart,  hold  me  less  dear, 
Lest  time  hold  nothing  dearer. 


Keep  me,  dear  lips,  O,  keep 

The  great  last  word  unspoken, 

Lest  other  eyes  go  weep, 

And  other  lives  lie  broken! 


xxx 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 

XVIH 

Poplar  and  lime  and  chestnut 

Meet  in  a  living  screen; 
And  there  the  winds  and  the  sunbeams  keep 

A  revel  of  gold  and  green. 


O,  the  green  dreams  and  the  golden, 
The  golden  thoughts  and  green, 

This  green  and  golden  end  of  May 
My  lover  and  me  between! 


xxxi 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 

XIX 

Hither,  this  solemn  eventide, 

All  flushed  and  mystical  and  blue, 

When  the  late  bird  sings 

And  sweet-breathed  garden-ghosts  walk  sudden 

and  wide, 
Hesper,  that  bringeth  all  good  things, 
Brings  me  a  dream  of  you. 
And    in   my   heart,   dear    heart,  it  comes  and 

goes, 
Even  as  the  south  wind  lingers  and  falls  and 

blows, 
Even  as  the  south  wind  sighs  and  tarries  and 

streams, 
Among  the  living  leaves  about  and  round; 
With  a  still,  soothing  sound, 
As  of  a  multitude  of  dreams 
Of  love,  and   the   longing  of   love,  and  love's 

delight, 
Thronging,  ten  thousand  deep, 
Into  the  uncreating  Night, 
With  semblances  and  shadows  to  fulfil, 
Amaze,  and  thrill 
The  strange,  dispeopled  silences  of  Sleep. 


xxxn 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 

XX 

After  the  grim  daylight, 
Night- 
Night  and  the  stars  and  the  sea ! 
Only  the  sea,  and  the  stars 
And  the  star-shown  sails  and  spars — 
Naught  else  in  the  night  for  me! 


Over  the  northern  height, 
Light- 
Light  and  the  dawn  of  a  day 
With  nothing  for  me  but  a  breast 
Laboured  with  love's  unrest, 
And  the  irk  of  an  idle  May! 


XXXIII 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 

XXI 

Love,  which  is  lust,  is  the  Lamp  in  the  Tomb* 
Love,  which  is  lust,  is  the  Call  from  the  Gloom* 


Love,  which  is  lust,  is  the  Main  of  Desire* 
Love,  which  is  lust,  is  the  Centric  Fire* 


So  man  and  woman  will  keep  their  trust, 
Till  the  very  Springs  of  the  Sea  run  dust* 


Yea,  each  with  the  other  will  lose  and  win, 
Till  the  very  Sides  of  the  Grave  fall  in* 


For  the  strife  of  Love's  the  abysmal  strife, 
And  the  word  of  Love  is  the  Word  of  Life. 


And  they  that  go  with  the  Word  unsaid, 
Though  they  seem  of  the  living,   are  damned 
and  dead* 


XXXIV 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 

xxn 

Between  the  dusk  of  a  summer  night 

And  the  dawn  of  a  summer  day, 
We  caught  at  a  mood  as  it  passed  in  flight, 

And  we  bade  it  stoop  and  stay. 
And  what  with  the  dawn  of  night  began 

With  the  dusk  of  day  was  done; 
For  that  is  the  way  of  woman  and  man, 

When  a  hazard  has  made  them  one. 


Arc  upon  arct  from  shade  to  shine, 

The  World  went  thundering  free; 
And  what  was  his  errand  but  hers  and  mine — 

The  lords  of  him,  I  and  she? 
O,  it's  die  we  must,  but  it's  live  we  can, 

And  the  marvel  of  earth  and  sun 
Is  all  for  the  joy  of  woman  and  man 

And  the  longing  that  makes  them  one. 


XXXV 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 

XXIII 

I  took  a  hansom  on  to-day 

For  a  round  I  used  to  know — 

That  I  used  to  take  for  a  woman's  sake 
In  a  fever  of  to-and-fro* 


There  were  the  landmarks  one  and  all — 
What  did  they  stand  to  show? 

Street  and  square  and  river  were  there — 
Where  was  the  antient  woe? 


Never  a  hint  of  a  challenging  hope 
Nor  a  hope  laid  sick  and  low, 

And  a  longing  dead  as  its  kindred  sped 
A  thousand  years  ago! 


xxxvi 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 

XXIV 

Only  a  freakish  wisp  of  hair? — 

Nay,  but  its  wildest,  its  most  frolic  whorl 

Stands  for  a  slim,  enamoured,  sweet-fleshed  girl ! 

And  so,  a  tangle  of  dream  and  charm  and  fun, 

Its  every  crook  a  promise  and  a  snare, 

Its  every  dowle,  or  genially  gadding 

Or  crisply  curled, 

Heartening  and  madding, 

Empales  a  novel  and  peculiar  world 

Of  right,  essential  fantasies, 

And  shining  acts  as  yet  undone, 

But  in  these  wonder-working  days 

Soon,  soon  to  ask  our  sovran  Lord,  the  Sun, 

For  countenance  and  praise, 

As  of  the  best  his  storying  eye  hath  seen, 

And  his  vast  memory  can  parallel, 

Among  the  darling  victories — 

Beneficent,  beautiful,  inexpressible — 

Of  life  on  time! — 

Yet  have  they  flashed  and  been 
In  millions,  since  'twas  his  to  bring 
The  heaven-creating  Spring, 
An  angel  of  adventure  and  delight, 
In  all  her  beauty  and  all  her  strength  and  worth, 
With 

xxxvii 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 

With  her  great  guerdons  of  romance  and  spright, 
And  those  high  needs  that   fill  the  flesh  with 

might, 
Home  to  the  citizens  of  this  good,  green  earth* 


Poor  souls — they  have  but  time  and  place 

To  play  their  transient  little  play 

And  sing  their  singular  little  song, 

Ere  they  are  rushed  away 

Into  the  antient,  undisclosing  Night; 

And  none  is  left  to  tell  of  the  clear  eyes 

That  filled  them  with  God's  grace, 

And  turned  the  iron  skies  to  skies  of  gold! 

None ;  but  the  sweetest  She  herself  grows  old — 

Grows  old,  and  dies; 

And,  but  for  such  a  lovely  snatch  of  hair 

As  this,  none — none  could  guess,  or  know 

That  She  was  kind  and  fair, 

And  he  had  nights  and  days  beyond  compare — 

How  many  dusty  and  silent  years  ago! 


xxxvm 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 

XXV 

This  is  the  moon  of  roses, 

The  lovely  and  flowerful  time; 

And,  as  white  roses  climb  the  wall, 
Your  dreams  about  me  climb* 


This  is  the  moon  of  roses, 

Glad  and  golden  and  blue; 

And,  as  red  roses  drink  of  the  sun, 
My  dreams  they  drink  of  you. 


This  is  the  moon  of  roses ! 

The  cherishing  South-West  blows, 
And  life,  dear  heart,  for  me  and  you, 

O,  life's  a  rejoicing  rose* 


XXXIX 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 

XXVI 

June,  and  a  warm,  sweet  rain; 

June,  and  the  call  of  a  bird: 
To  a  lover  in  pain 

What  lovelier  word? 


Two  of  each  other  fain 

Happily  heart  on  heart: 
So  in  the  wind  and  rain 

Spring  bears  his  part! 


O,  to  be  heart  on  heart 

One  with  the  warm  June  rain, 
God  with  us  from  the  start, 

And  no  more  pain! 


xl 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 

XXVH        " 

It  was  a  bowl  of  roses: 

There  in  the  light  they  lay, 
Languishing,  glorying,  glowing 

Their  life  away* 


And  the  soul  of  them  rose  like  a  presence, 

Into  me  crept  and  grew, 
And  filled  me  with  something — some  one — 

O.  was  it  you? 


xli 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 
_____  _____  _ 

Your  feet  as  glad 

And  light   as    a   dove's    homing    wings,    you 

came — 
Came  with  your  sweets  to  fill  my  hands, 
My  sense  with  your  perfume. 


We  closed  with  Lips 

Grown  weary  and  fain  with  longing  from  afar, 
The  while  your  grave,  enamoured  eyes 
Drank  down  the  dream  in  mine* 


Till  the  great  need 

So  lovely  and  so  instant  grew,  it  seemed 
The  embodied  Spirit  of  the  Spring 
Hung  at  me,  heart  on  heart* 


xlii 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 

XXIX 

A  world  of  leafage  murmurous  and  a-twinkle; 

The  green,  delicious  plenitude  of  June; 

Love  and  laughter  and  song 

The  blue  day  long 

Going  to  the  same  glad,  golden  tune — 

The  same  glad  tune! 


Clouds  on  the  dim,  delighting  skies  a-sprinkle; 

Poplars  black  in  the  wake  of  a  setting  moon; 

Love  and  languor  and  sleep 

And  the  star-sown  deep 

Going  to  the  same  good,  golden  tune — 

The  same  good  tune! 


xliii 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 

XXX 

I  send  you  roses — red,  like  love, 

And  white,  like  death,  sweet  friend: 

Born  in  your  bosom  to  rejoice, 
Languish,  and  droop,  and  end. 


If  the  white  roses  tell  of  death, 
Let  the  red  roses  mend 

The  talk  with  true  stories  of  love 
Unchanging  to  the  end. 


Red  and  white  roses,  love  and  death- 
What  else  is  left  to  send? 

For  what  is  life  but  love,  the  means, 
And  death,  true  Wife,  the  end? 


xliv 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 

XXXI 

These  glad,  these  great,  these  goodly  days 
Bewildering  hope,  outrunning  praise, 

The   Earth,  renewed  by  the  great  Sun's 
longing, 
Utters  her  joy  in  a  million  ways ! 


What  is  there  left,  sweet  soul  and  true — 
What,  for  us  and  our  dream  to  do? 

What  but  to  take  this  mighty  Summer 
As  it  were  made  for  me  and  you? 


Take  it  and  live  it  beam  by  beam, 
Motes  of  light  on  a  gleaming  stream, 

Glare  by  glare  and  glory  on  glory 
Through  to  the  ash  of  this  flaming  dream! 


xlv 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 

XXXII 

The  downs,  like  uplands  in  Eden, 

Gleam  in  an  afterglow 
Like  a  rose-world  ruining  earthwards — 

Mystical,  wistful,  slow! 


Near  and  afar  in  the  leafage, 

That  last  glad  call  to  the  nest! 

And  the  thought  of  you  hangs  and  triumphs 
With  Hesper  low  in  the  west! 


Till  the  song  and  the  light  and  the  colour, 
The  passion  of  earth  and  sky, 

Are  blent  in  a  rapture  of  boding 

Of  the  death  we  should  one  day  die* 


:lvi 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 

XXXIII 

The  time  of  the  silence 
Of  birds  is  upon  us: 
Rust  in  the  chestnut  leaf, 
Dust  in  the  stubble: 
The  turn  of  the  Year 
And  the  call  to  decay. 


Stately  and  splendid, 
The  Summer  passes: 
Sad  with  satiety, 
Sick  with  fulfilment ; 
Spent  and  consumed, 
But  august  till  the  end* 


By  wilting  hedgerows 
And  white-hot  highways, 
Bearing  its  memories 
Even  as  a  burden, 
The  tired  heart  plods 
For  a  place  of  rest. 


xlvii 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 
XXXIV 

There  was  no  kiss  that  day? 

No  intimate  Yea-and-Nay, 

No  sweets  in  hand,  no  tender,  lingering  touch  ? 

None  of  those  desperate,  exquisite  caresses, 

So  instant — O,  so  brief! — and  yet  so  much, 

The  thought  of  the  swiftest  lifts  and  blesses? 

Nor  any  one  of  those  great  royal  words, 

Those  sovran  privacies  of  speech, 

Frank  as  the  call  of  April  birds, 

That,  whispered,  live  a  life  of  gold 

Among  the  heart's  still  sainted  memories, 

And  irk,  and  thrill,  and  ravish,  and  beseech, 

Even  when  the  dream  of  dreams  in  death's  a-cold? 

No,  there  was  none  of  these, 

Dear  one,  and  yet — 

O,  eyes  on  eyes!     O,  voices  breaking  still, 

For  all  the  watchful  will, 

Into  a  kinder  kindness  than  seemed  due 

From  you  to  me,  and  me  to  you! 

And  that  hot-eyed,  close-throated,  blind  regret 

Of  woman  and  man  baulked  and  debarred  the 

blue  !— 
No  kiss — no  kiss  that  day? 
Nay,  rather,  though  we  seemed  to  wear  the  rue, 
Sweet  friend,  how  many,  and  how  goodly — say! 

xlviii 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 

XXXV 

Sing  to  me,  sing,  and  sing  again, 

My  glad,  great-throated  nightingale: 

Sing,  as  the  good  sun  through  the  rain — 
Sing,  as  the  home-wind  in  the  sail! 


Sing  to  me  life,  and  toil,  and  time, 
O  bugle  of  dawn,  O  flute  of  rest ! 

Sing,  and  once  more,  as  in  the  prime, 

There  shall  be  naught  but  seems  the  best* 


And  sing  me  at  the  last  of  love: 

Sing  that  old  magic  of  the  May, 

That  makes  the  great  world  laugh  and  move 
As  lightly  as  our  dream  to-day! 


xlix 


HAWTHORN    AND   LAVENDER 

XXXVI 

We  sat  late,  late — talking  of  many  things. 
He  told  me  of  his  grief  and,  in  the  telling, 
The  gist  of  his  tale  showed  to  me,  rhymed, 
like  this* 


It  camet  the  news,  like  a  fire  in  the  night, 
That  life  and  its  best  were  done ; 

And  there  was  never  so  dazed  a  wretch 
In  the  beat  of  the  living  sun. 


I  read  the  news,  and  the  terms  of  the  news 
Reeled  random  round  my  brain 

Like  the  senseless,  tedious  huzzlz  and  boom 
Of  a  bluefly  in  the  pane* 


So  I  went  for  the  news  to  the  house  of  the 
news, 
But  the  words  were  left  unsaid, 
For    the  face  of    the  house   was   blank  with 
blinds, 
And  I  knew  that  she  was  dead. 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 

XXXVII 

'Twas  in  a  world  of  living  leaves 

That  we  two  reaped  and  bound  our  sheaves: 

They  were  of  white  roses  and  red, 

And  in  the  scything  they  were  dead. 


Now  the  high  Autumn  flames  afield, 
And  what  is  all  his  golden  yield 
To  that  we  took,  and  sheaved,  and  bound 
In  the  green  dusk  that  gladdened  round? 


Yet  must  the  memory  grieve  and  ache 
Of  that  we  did  for  dear  love's  sake, 
But  may  no  more  under  the  sun, 
Being,  like  our  summer,  spent  and  done* 


li 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 

xxxvni 

Since  those  we  love  and  those  we  hate, 
With  all  things  mean  and  all  things  great, 
Pass  in  a  desperate  disarray 
Over  the  hills  and  far  away  : 


It  must  be,  dear,  that,  late  or  soon, 
Out  of  the  ken  of  the  watching  moon, 
We  shall  abscond  with  Yesterday 
Over  the  hills  and  far  away* 


What  does  it  matter?    As  I  deem, 
We  shall  but  follow  as  brave  a  dream 
As  ever  smiled  a  wanton  May 
Over  the  hills  and  far  away* 


We  shall  remember,  and,  in  pride, 
Fare  forth,  fulfilled  and  satisfied, 
Into  the  land  of  Ever-and-Aye, 
Ober  the  hills  and  far  away* 


lii 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 

XXXDC 

These  were  the  woods  of  wonder 

We  found  so  close  and  boon, 
When  the  bride-month  in  her  beauty 

Lay  mouth  to  mouth  with  June* 


November,  the  oldt  lean  widow, 
Sniffs,  and  snivels,  and  shrills, 

And  the  bowers  are  all  dismantled, 

And  the  long  grass  wets  and  chills; 


And  I  hate  these  dismal  dawnings, 
These  miserable  even-ends, 

These  orts,  and  rags,  and  heeltaps — 
This  dream  of  being  merely  friends* 


liii 


HAWTHORN   AND   LAVENDER 

XL 

"f)earest,  when  I  am  dead, 

Make  one  last  song  for  me: 
Sing  what  I  would  have  said — 

Righting  life's  wrong  for  me, 


♦  4 


Tell  them  how,  early  and  late, 
Glad  ran  the  days  with  me, 

Seeing  how  goodly  and  great, 

Love,  were  your  ways  with  me/' 


liv 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 


XLI 

Dear  hands,  so  many  times  so  much 

When  the  spent  year  was  green  and  prime, 

Come,  take  your  fill,  and  touch 
This  one  poor  time* 


Dear  lips,  that  could  not  leave  unsaid 
One  sweet-souled  syllable  of  delight, 

Once  more — and  be  as  dead 
In  the  dead  night* 


Dear  eyes,  so  fond  to  read  in  mine 

The  message  of  our  counted  years, 

Look  your  proud  last,  nor  shine 
Through  tears— through  tears* 


lv 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 

XUI 

When,  in  what  other  life, 

Where  in  what  old,  spent  star, 

Systems  ago,  dead  vastitudes  afar, 

Were   we  two   bird   and  bough,  or  man  and 

wife? 
Or  wave  and  spar? 
Or  I  the  beating  sea,  and  you  the  bar 
On  which  it  breaks?    I  know  not,  I! 
But  this,  O  this,  my  very  dear,  I  know: 
Your  voice  awakes  old  echoes  in  my  heart; 
And  things  I  say  to  you  now  are  said  once 

more; 
And,  sweet,  when  we  two  part, 
I  feel  I  have  seen  you  falter  and  linger  so, 
So  hesitate,  and  turn,  and  cling — yet  go, 
As  once  in  some  immemorable  Before, 
Once  on  some  fortunate  yet  thrice-blasted  shore* 
Was  it  for  good? 
O,  these  poor  eyes  are  wet; 
And  yet,  O,  yet, 

Now  that  we  know,  I  would  not,  if  I  could, 
Forget. 


lvi 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 

XLHI 

The  rain  and  the  wind,  the  wind  and  the  rain — 

They  are  with  us  like  a  disease: 
They  worry  the  heart,  they  work  the  brain, 

As  they  shoulder   and  clutch  at  the  shrieking 
pane, 
And  savage  the  helpless  trees* 


What  does  it  profit  a  man  to  know 

These  tattered  and  tumbling  skies 
A  million  stately  stars  will  show, 
And  the  ruining  grace  of  the  after-glow 
And  the  rush  of  the  wild  sunrise? 


Ever  the  rain — the  rain  and  the  wind! 

Come,  hunch  with  me  over  the  fire, 
Dream  of  the  dreams  that  leered  and  grinned, 
Ere  the  blood  of  the  Year  got  chilled  and  thinned, 

And  the  death  came  on  desire! 


lvii 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 

XLIV 

He  made  this  gracious  Earth  a  hell 
With  Love  and  Drink.     I  cannot  tell 
Of  which  he  died.    Bat  Death  was  well. 


Will  I  die  of  drink? 

Why  not  ? 
Won't  I  pause  and  think? 

-What  ? 
Why  in  seeming  wise 

Waste  your  breath? 
Everybody  dies — 

And  of  death! 


Youth — if  you  find  it's  youth 

Too  late? 
Truth — and  the  back  of  truth? 

Straight, 
Be  it  love  or  liquor, 

What's  the  odds, 
So  it  slide  you  quicker 

To  the  gods? 


lviii 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 

XLV 

O,  these  long  nights  of  days ! 

All  the  year's  baseness  in  the  ways, 

All  the  year's  wretchedness  in  the  skies; 

While  on  the  blind,  disheartened  sea 

A  tramp-wind  plies 

Cringingly  and  dejectedly! 

And  rain  and  darkness,  mist  and  mud, 

They    cling,   they  close,   they   sneak   into    the 

blood, 
They  crawl  and  crowd  upon  the  brain: 
Till  in  a  dull,  dense  monotone  of  pain 
The  past  is  found  a  kind  of  maze, 
At  whose  every  coign  and  crook, 
Broad  angle  and  privy  nook, 
There  waits  a  hooded  Memory, 
Sad,  yet  with    strange,   bright,   unreproaching 

eyes. 


tix 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 

XLVI 

In  Shoreham  River,  hurrying  down 

To  the  live  sea, 

By    working,    marrying,    breeding     Shoreham 

Town, 
Breaking  the  sunset's  wistful  and  solemn  dream, 
An  old,  black  rotter  of  a  boat 
Past  service  to  the  labouring,  tumbling  flote, 
Lay  stranded  in  mid-stream: 
With  a  horrid  list,  a  frightening  lapse  from  the 

line, 
That   made   me  think  of  legs   and   a   broken 

spine : 
Soon,  all  too  soon, 
Ungainly  and  forlorn  to  lie 
Full  in  the  eye 

Of  the  cynical,  discomfortable  moon 
That,    as    I    looked,    stared    from    the    fading 

sky, 
A  clown's  face  flour'd  for  work.    And  by  and 

by 
The  wide-winged  sunset  wanned  and  waned; 
The  lean  night-wind  crept  westward,  chilling 

and  sighing; 
The  poor  old  hulk  remained, 

Stuck 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 

Stuck  helpless  in  mid-ebb.     And  I  knew  why — 
Why,  as  I  looked,  my  heart  felt  crying/ 
For,  as  I  looked,  the  good  green  earth  seemed 

dying — 
Dying  or  dead; 

And,  as  I  looked  on  the  old  boat,  I  said: — 
"Dear  God,  it  fs  I!" 


1  At  two  years  old,  my  child,  being  chidden,  found  this  striking 
phrase. — W.  E.  H. 


ki 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 

XLVH 

Come  by  my  bed, 

What  time  the  gray  ghost  shrieks  and  flies; 

Take  in  your  hands  my  head, 

And  look,  O  look,  into  my  failing  eyes; 

And,  by  God's  grace, 

Even  as  He  sunders  body  and  breath, 

The  shadow  of  your  face 

Shall  pass  with  me  into  the  run 

Of  the  Beyond,  and  I  shall  keep  and  save 

Your  beauty,  as  it  used  to  be, 

An  absolute  part  of  me, 

Lying  there,  dead  and  done, 

Far  from  the  sovran  bounty  of  the  sun, 

Down  in  the  grisly  colonies  of  the  Grave* 


lxii 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 

XLVHI 

Gray  hills,  gray  skies,  gray  lights, 

And  still,  gray  sea — 

O  fond,  O  fair, 

The  Mays  that  were, 

When  the  wild  days  and  wilder  nights 

Made  it  like  heaven  to  be ! 


Gray  head,  gray  heart,  gray  dreams- 

O,  breath  by  breath, 

Night-tide  and  day 

Lapse  gentle  and  gray, 

As  to  a  murmur  of  tired  streams, 

Into  the  haze  of  death. 


Ixiii 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 

XLIX 

Silence,  loneliness,  darkness — 

These,  and  of  these  my  fill, 
While  God  in  the  rush  of  the  Maytide 

Without  is  working  His  will. 


Without  are  the  wind  and  the  wall-flowers, 
The  leaves  and  the  nests  and  the  rain, 

And  in  all  of  them  God  is  making 
His  beautiful  purpose  plain. 


But  I  wait  in  a  horror  of  strangeness — 
A  tool  on  His  workshop  floor, 

Worn  to  the  butt,  and  banished 
His  hand  forevermore. 


Ixiv 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 

L 

So  let  mc  hence  as  one 

Whose  part  in  the  world  has  been  dreamed  out 

and  done: 
One  that  hath  fairly  earned  and  spent 
In  pride  of  heart  and  jubilance  of  blood 
Such  wages,  be  they  counted  bad  or  good, 
As  Time,  the  old  taskmaster,  was  moved  to  pay; 
And,  having  warred  and  suffered,  and  passed  on 
Those  gifts  the  Arbiters  preferred  and  gave, 
Fare,  grateful  and  content, 
Down  the  dim  way 
Whereby  races  innumerable  have  gone, 
Into  the  silent  universe  of  the  grave. 


Grateful  for  what  hath  been — 

For  what  my  hand  hath  done,  mine  eyes  have 

seen, 
My  heart  been  privileged  to  know; 
With  all  my  lips  in  love  have  brought 
To   lips   that   yearned    in   love   to  them,   and 

wrought 
In  the  way  of  wrath,  and  pity,  and  sport,  and 

song: 

Content 

5  lxv 


HAWTHORN   AND    LAVENDER 

Content,  this  miracle  of  being  alive 
Dwindling,  that  I,  thrice  weary  of  worst  and 

best, 
May  shed  my  duds,  and  go, 
From  right  and  wrong, 
And,  ceasing  to  regret,  and  long,  and  strive, 
Accept  the  past,  and  be  forever  at  rest. 


lxvi 


HAWTHORN    AND    LAVENDER 

FINALE  Schiz^ando  ma  con  sentimento. 

A  sigh  sent  wrong, 
A  kiss  that  goes  astray, 
A  sorrow  the  years  endlong — 
So  they  say. 


So  let  it  be — 

Come  the  sorrow,  the  kiss,  the  sigh! 
They  are  life,  dear  life,  all  three, 
And  we  die. 

Worthing,  J899-J90J. 


lxvii 


LONDON    TYPES 


(ToS.  S.  P.) 


LONDON    TYPES 


BUS  DRIVER 

IE  'S  called  The  General  from  the 

brazen  craft 
[And  dash  with  which  he  sneaks 

a  bit  of  road 
I  And  all  its  fares;  challenged,  or 
chafed,  or  chaffed, 
Back-answers  of  the  newest  he'll  explode; 
He  reins  his  horses  with  an  air;  he  treats 
With  scoffing  calm  whatever  powers  there  be; 
He  gets  it  straight,  puts  a  bit  on,  and  meets 
His  losses  with  both  lip  and  £  s.  d. ; 
He  arrogates  a  special  taste  in  short ; 
Is  loftily  grateful  for  a  flagrant  smoke; 
At  all  the  smarter  housemaids  winks  his  court, 
And  taps  them  for  half-crowns;  being  stoney- 
broke, 
Lives  lustily;  is  ever  on  the  make; 
And  hath,  I  fear,  none  other  gods  but  Fake* 


lxxi 


LONDON    TYPES 


LIFE-GUARDSMAN 
#JOY  of  the  Milliner,  Envy  of  the  Line, 
Star  of  the  Parks,  jack-booted,  sworded,  helmed, 
He  sits  between  his  holsters,  solid  of  spine; 
Nor,  as   it  seems,  though    Westminster  were 

whelmed, 
With  the  great  globe,  in  earthquake  and  eclipse, 
Would  he  and  his  charger  cease  from  mount- 
ing guard, 
This  Private  in  the  Blues,  nor  would  his  lips 
Move,   though   his  gorge  with  throttled  oaths 

were  charred! 
He  wears  his  inches  weightily,  as  he  wears 
His  old-world  armours;  and  with  his  port  and 

pride, 
His  sturdy  graces  and  enormous  airs, 
He  towers,  in  speech  his  Colonel  countrified, 
A  triumph,  waxing  statelier  year  by  year, 
Of  British  blood,  and  bone,  and  beef,  and 
beer* 


Ixxii 


LONDON    TYPES 

HAWKER 

UFAR  out  of  bounds  he 's  figured — in  a  race 
Of  West-End  traffic  pitching  to  his  loss. 
But  if  you'd  see  him  in  his  proper  place, 
Making  the  browns  for  bub  and  grub  and  doss. 
Go  East  among  the  merchants  and  their  men, 
And  where  the  press  is  noisiest,  and  the  tides 
Of  trade  run  highest  and  widest,  there  and  then 
You  shall  behold  him,  edging  with  equal  strides 
Along  the  kerb;  hawking  in  either  hand 
Some  artful  nothing  made  of  twine  and  tin, 
Cardboard  and  foil  and  bits  of  rubber  band: 
Some  penn'orth  of  wit-in-fact  that,  with  a  grin, 
The  careful  City  marvels  at,  and  buys 
For  nurselings  in  the  Suburbs  to  despise! 


lxxiii 


LONDON    TYPES 


BEEF-EATER 

#HIS  beat  lies   knee-high  through  a  dust  of 
story — 

A  dust  of  terror  and  torture,  grief  and  crime; 

Ghosts  that  are  England's  wonder,  and  shame, 

and  glory- 
Throng  where  he  walks,  an  antic  of  old  time ; 

A  sense  of  long  immedicable  tears 

Were  ever  with  him,  could  his  ears  but  heed; 

The  stern  Hie  Jacets  of  our  bloodiest  years 

Are  for  his  reading,  had  he  eyes  to  read, 

But  here,  where  Crookback  raged,  and  Cranmer 
trimmed, 

And  More  and  Strafford  faced  the  axe's  prov- 
ing, 

He   shows   that  Crown   the   desperate   Colonel 
nimmed, 

Or  simply  keeps  the  Country  Cousin  moving, 
Or  stays  such  Cockney  pencillers  as  would 

shame 
The  wall   where   some   dead  Queen  hath 
traced  her  name* 


Ixxiv 


LONDON    TYPES 


SANDWICH-MAN 

^  AN  ill  March  noon;  the  flagstones  gray  with 

dust; 
An  all-round  east  wind  volleying  straws  and 

grit; 
St.  Martin's   Steps,   where    every   venomous 

gust 
Lingers  to  buffet,  or  sneap,  the  passing  cit; 
And  in  the  gutter,  squelching  a  rotten  boot, 
Draped  in  a  wrap  that,  modish  ten  year  syne, 
Partners,  obscene  with  sweat  and  grease  and 

soot, 
A  horrible  hat,  that  once  was  just  as  fine; 
The   drunkard's   mouth  a-wash  for  something 

drinkable, 
The  drunkard's  eye  alert  for  casual  toppers, 
The   drunkard's   neck  stooped  to  a  lot  scarce 

thinkable, 
A  living,  crawling  blazoning  of  Hot-Coppers, 
He  trails  his  mildews  towards  a  Kingdom- 
Come 
Compact  of  sausage-and-mash  and  two-o'- 
rutnl 


Ixxv 


LONDON   TYPES 


'LIZA 

§&'Liza's  old  man  's  perhaps  a  little  shady, 

'Liza's  old  ivoman  's  prone  to  booze  and  cringe ; 

But  tLiza  deems  herself  a  perfect  lady, 

And  proves  it  in  her  feathers  and  her  fringe* 

For  'Liza  has  a  bloke  her  heart  to  cheer, 

With  pearlies  and  a  barrer  and  a  /ac&, 

So  all  the  vegetables  of  the  year 

Are  duly  represented  on  her  back* 

Her  boots  are  sacrifices  to  her  hats, 

Which  knock  you  speechless  —  like  a  load  of 

bricks  I 
Her  summer  velvets  dazzle  Wanstead  Flats, 
And  cost,  at  times,  a  good  eighteen-and-six. 
Withal,  outside  the  gay  and  giddy  whirl, 
'Liza  's   a   stupid,  straight,  hard  -  working 
girl 


Ixxvi 


LONDON    TYPES 


44  LADY  " 

UPTIME,  the   old    humourist,  has  a   trick  to- 
day 
Of  moving  landmarks  and  of  levelling  down, 
Till  into  Town  the  Suburbs  edge  their  way, 
And  in  the  Suburbs  you  may  scent  the  Town. 
With  Mount  St  thus  approaching  Muswell 

Hill, 
And  Clapham  Common  marching  with  the  Mile, 
You  get  a  Hammersmith  that  fills  the  bill, 
A  Hampstead  with  a  serious  sense  of  style* 
So  this  fair  creature,  pictured  in  The  Row, 
As  one  of  that  "gay  adulterous  world/'1  whose 

round 
Is  by  the  Serpentine,  as  well  would  show, 
And  might,  I  deem,  as  readily  be  found 

On  Streatham's  Hill,  or  Wimbledon's,   or 

where 
Brixtonian  kitchens  lard  the  late-dining  air. 


Wilfrid  Blunt. 


Ixxvii 


LONDON    TYPES 


BLUECOAT  BOY 

^SO    went    our    boys  when  Edward  Sixth, 

the  King, 
Chartered  Christ s  Hospital,  and  died*    And  so 
Full  fifteen  generations  in  a  string 
Of  heirs  to  his  bequest  have  had  to  go. 
Thus  Camden  showed,  and  Barnes,  and  Still 

INGFLEET, 

And  Richardson,  that  bade  our  Lovelace  be; 
The  little  Ella  thus  in  Newgate  Street,- 
Thus  to  his  Genevieve  young  5,  T.  C 
With  thousands   else   that,  wandering  up  and 

down, 
Quaint,  privileged,  liked  and  reputed  well, 
Made  the  great  School  a  part  of  London  Town 
Patent  as  Paul's  and  vital  as  'Bow  Bell: 

The   old    School    nearing   exile,    day   by 

day, 
To  certain  clay-lands  somewhere  Horsham 
way» 


lxxviii 


LONDON   TYPES 


MOUNTED  POLICE 

^ARMY  Reserve;  a  worshipper  of  Bobs, 

With  whom  he  stripped  the  smock  from  Canda- 

HAR; 

Neat  as  his  mount,  that  neatest  among  cobs; 
Whenever  pageants  pass,  or  meetings  are, 
He  moves  conspicuous,  vigilant,  severe, 
With  his  Light  Cavalry  hand  and  seat  and  look, 
A  living  type  of  Order,  in  whose  sphere 
Is  room  for  neither  Hooligan  nor  Hook* 
For  in  his  shadow,  wheresoe'er  he  ride, 
Paces,  all  eye  and  hardihood  and  grip, 
The  dreaded  Crusher,  might  in  his  every  stride 
And  right  materialized  girt  at  his  hip; 

And  they,  that  shake  to  see  these  twain 
go  by, 

Feel  that  the  Tect  that  plain-clothes  Terror, 
is  nigh* 


lxxix 


LONDON    TYPES 


NEWS-BOY 

INTAKE  any  station,  pavement,  circus,  corner, 

Where  men   their  styles  of  print  may  call  or 

choose, 
And  there — ten  times   more  on  it  than  Jack 

Horner— 
There  shall  you  find  him  swathed  in  sheets  of 

news* 
Nothing  can  stay  the  placing  of  his  wares — 
Not  bus,  nor  cab,  nor  dray!     The  very  Slop, 
That   imp    of  power,  is   powerless!     Ever  he 

dares, 
And,  daring,  lands  his  public  neck  and  crop* 
Even  the  many-tortured  London  ear, 
The  much-enduring,  loathes  his  Speeshul  yell, 
His  shriek  of  Winnur !    But  his  dart  and   leer 
And  poise  arc  irresistible.    Pall  Mall 

Joys  in  him,  and  Mile  End-,  for  his  vo- 
cation 
Is  to  purvey  the  stuff  of  conversation* 


lxxx 


LONDON    TYPES 


DRUM-MAJOR 

If*  WHO   says  Drum  -  Major    says  a  man   of 

mould, 
Shaking  the  meek  earth  with  tremendous  tread, 
And  pacing  still,  a  triumph  to  behold, 
Of  his  own  spine  at  least  two  yards  ahead! 
Attorney,  grocer,  surgeon,  broker,  duke — 
His  calling  may  be  anything,  who  comes 
Into  a  room,  his  presence  a  rebuke 
To  the  dejected,  as  the  pipes  and  drums 
Inspired  his  port ! — who  mounts  his  office  stairs 
As  though  he  led  great  armies  to  the  fight! 
His  bulk  itself 's  pure  genius,  and  he  wears 
His  avoirdupois  with  so  much  fire  and  spright 

That,  though  the  creature  stands  but  five 
feet  five, 

You  take  him  for  the  tallest  He  alive, 


Ixxxi 


LONDON    TYPES 


FLOWER-GIRL 

$»  THERE'S  never  a  delicate  nurseling  of  the 

year 
But  our  huge  London  hails  it,  and  delights 
To  wear  it  on  her  breast  or  at  her  eart 
Her  days  to  colour  and  make  sweet  her  nights. 
Crocus  and  daffodil  and  violet, 
Pink,  primrose,  valley-lily,  clove-carnation, 
Red  rose  and  white  rose,  wall -flower,  migno- 
nette, 
The  daisies  all — these  be  her  recreation, 
Her   gaudies   these!      And   forth  from   Drury 

Lane, 
Trapesing  in  any  of  her  whirl  of  weathers, 
Her  flower-girls  foot  it,  honest  and  hoarse  and 

vain, 
All  boot  and  little  shawl  and  wilted  feathers : 
Of  populous  corners  right  advantage  taking, 
And,    where   they   squat,   endlessly   posy- 
making. 


lxxxii 


LONDON    TYPES 


BARMAID 

^THOUGH,  if  you  ask  her  name,  she  says 

Elise, 
Being  plain  Elizabeth,  e'en  let  it  pass, 
And  own  that,  if  her  aspirates  take  their  ease, 
She  ever  makes  a  point,  in  washing  glass, 
Handling  the  engine,  turning  taps  for  tots, 
And  countering  change,  and  scorning  what  men 

say, 
Of  posing  as  a  dove  among  the  pots, 
Nor  often  gives  her  dignity  away. 
Her  head's  a  work  of  art,  and,  if  her  eyes 
Be  tired  and  ignorant,  she  has  a  waist; 
Cheaply  the  Mode  she  shadows ;  and  she  tries 
From  penny  novels  to  amend  her  taste; 

And,  having  mopped  the  zinc  for  certain 

years, 
And   faced   the  gas,  she  fades  and  disap- 
pears. 


lxxxiii 


LONDON   TYPES 


$■  The  Artist  muses  at  his  ease, 
Contented  that  his  work  is  done, 
And  smiling — smiling  ! — as  he  sees 
His  crowd  collecting,  one  by  one* 
Alas  I  his  travail  fs  but  begun  I 
None,  none  can  keep  the  years  in  line, 
And  what  to  Ninety-Eight  is  fun 
May  raise  the  gorge  of  Ninety-Nine  I 

Muswell  Hill,  1898. 


Ixxxiv 


THREE   PROLOGUES 


THREE   PROLOGUES 
BEAU  AUSTIN 

'By  W,  E,  Henley  and  9^.  L.  Stevenson, 
Haymarket  Theatre,  c^cyvember  3,  1890, 

Spoken  by  Mr.  Tree  in  the  character  of  Beau  Austin. 

|0  all  and  singular/*  as   Dryden 

says, 
I  We     bring    a    fancy    of    those 
^JjIpS  Georgian  days, 

r*iS  Whose     style     still    breathed    a 
faint  and  fine  perfume 
Of  old-world  courtliness  and  old-world  bloom: 
When  speech  was  elegant  and  talk  was  fit, 
For  slang  had  not  been  canonised  as  wit; 
When  manners  reigned,  when  breeding  had  the 

wall, 
And  Women — yes ! — were  ladies  first  of  all ; 
When  Grace  was  conscious  of  its  gracefulness, 
And  man — though  Man ! — was  not  ashamed  to 

dress, 
A  brave  formality,  a  measured  ease 
Were    his  —  and    hers  —  whose   effort   was   to 

please. 
And  to  excel  in  pleasing  was  to  reign, 
And,  if  you  sighed,  never  to  sigh  in  vain. 

But 

lxxxvii 


THREE    PROLOGUES 

But    then,    as    now  —  it    may    be,    something 

more — 
Woman  and  man  were  human  to  the  core. 
The   hearts   that    throbbed    behind   that    brave 

attire 
Burned  with  a  plenitude  of  essential  fire* 
They  too  could  risk,  they  also  could  rebel: 
They  could   love  wisely — they   could  love  too 

well. 
In  that  great  duel  of  Sex,  that  ancient  strife 
Which  is  the  very  central  fact  of  life, 
They  could  —  and   did  —  engage  it  breath   for 

breath, 
They    could  —  and    did  —  get    wounded    unto 

death. 
As  at  all  times  since  time  for  us  began 
Woman  was  truly  woman,  man  was  man, 
And  joy  and  sorrow  were  as  much  at  home 
In  trifling  Tunbridge  as  in  mighty  Rome. 


Dead — dead  and  done  with !     Swift  from  shine 

to  shade 
The  roaring  generations  flit  and  fade. 
To  this  one,  fading,  flitting,  like  the  rest, 
We 

Ixxxviii 


THREE    PROLOGUES 

We  come  to  proffer — be  it  worst  or  best — 
A  sketch,  a  shadow,  of  one  brave  old  time; 
A  hint  of  what  it  might  have  held  sublime; 
A  dream,  an  idyll,  call  it  what  you  will, 
Of  man  still  Man,  and  woman — Woman  still! 


Ixxxix 


THREE    PROLOGUES 
RICHARD  SAVAGE 

"By  J.  M.  Carrie  and  H.  <B.  Marriott  Watson, 
Criterion  Theatre,  April  16,  1891. 

j^TO    other    boards    for   pun  and    song   and 

dance ! 
Our  purpose  is  an  essay  in  romance: 
An  old-world  story  where  such  old-world  facts 
As  hate  and  love  and  death,  through  four  swift 

acts — 
Not  without  gleams  and  glances,  hints  and  cues, 
From  the  dear  bright  eyes  of  the  Comic  Muse ! — 
So  shine  and  sound  that,  as  we  fondly  deem, 
They  may  persuade  you  to  accept  our  dream; 
Our  own  invention,  mainly — though  we  take, 
Somewhat  for  art  but  most  for  interest's  sake, 
One  for  our  hero  who  goes  wandering  still 
In  the  long  shadow  of  Parnassus  Hill; 
Scarce  within  eyeshot;  but  his  tragic  shade 
Compels  that  recognition  due  be  made, 
When  he  comes  knocking  at  the  student's  door, 
Something  as  poet,  if  as  blackguard  more* 
Poet  and  blackguard.    Of  the  first — how  much  ? 
As  to  the  second,  in  quite  perfect  touch 
With  folly  and  sorry,  even  shame  and  crime, 
He  lived  the  grief  and  wonder  of  his  time! 

Marked 

xc 


THREE   PROLOGUES 

Marked  for  reproaches  from  his  life's  beginning ; 
Extremely  sinned  against  as  well  as  sinning; 
Hack,  spendthrift,  starveling,  duellist  in  turn; 
Too  cross  to  cherish  yet  too  fierce  to  spurn; 
Begrimed   with   ink   or   brave   with  wine  and 

blood ; 
Spirit  of  fire  and  manikin  of  mud; 
Now   shining    clear,  now   fain  to   starve   and 

skulk; 
Star  of  the  cellar,  pensioner  of  the  bulk; 
At  once  the  child  of  passion  and  the  slave; 
Brawling  his  way  to  an  unhonoured  grave — 
That  was  Dick  Savage!    Yet,  ere  his  ghost  we 

raise 
For  these  more  decent  aad  less  desperate  days, 
It  may  be  well  and  seemly  to  reflect 
That,  howbeit  of  so  prodigal  a  sect, 
Since  it  was  his  to  call  until  the  end 
Our  greatest,  wisest  Englishman  his  friend, 
'Twere    all -too    fatuous    if    we    cursed    and 

scorned 
The  strange,  wild  creature  Johnson  loved  and 

mourned. 
Nature  is  but  the  oyster — Art's  the  pearl: 
Our  Dick  is  neither  sycophant  nor  churL 

Not 


xci 


THREE   PROLOGUES 

Not  as  he  was  but  as  he  might  have  been 
Had  the  Unkind  Gods  been  poets  of  the  scene, 
Fired  with  our  fancy,  shaped  and  tricked  anew 
To   touch   your   hearts   with    love,   your   eyes 

with  rue, 
He  stands  or  falls,  ere  he  these  boards  depart, 
Not  as  dead  Nature  but  as  living  Art. 


xcn 


THREE    PROLOGUES 


ADMIRAL  GUINEA 

'By  W.  E.  Henley  and  R,  L.  Stevenson, 
Avenue  Theatre,  Monday,  November  29,  1897. 

Spoken  by  Miss  Elizabeth  Robins. 

^ONCE  was  an  Age,  an  Age  of  blood  and 

gold, 
An  Age  of  shipmen  scoundrelly  and  bold — 
Blackbeard  and  Avory,    Singleton,    Roberts, 

KlDD: 

An  Age  which  seemed,  the  while  it  rolled  its 

quid, 
Brave    with    adventure     and     doubloons    and 

crime, 
Rum   and   the  Ebony  Trade:  when,  time  on 

time, 
Real   Pirates,   right    Sea  -  Highwaymen,    could 

mock 
The  carrion  strung  at  Execution  Dock-, 
And  the  trim  Slaver,  with  her  raking  rig, 
Her  cloud  of  sails,  her  spars  superb  and  trig, 
Held,  in  a  villainous  ecstasy  of  gain, 
Her  musky  course  from  Benin  to  the  Main, 
And  back  again  for  niggers: 

When,  in  fine, 

Some 

xciii 


THREE    PROLOGUES 


Some   thought   that   Eden  bloomed  across  the 

Line, 
And  some,  like  Cowper's  Newton,  lived  to  tell 
That   through   those  parallels  ran  the  road  to 

Hell. 


Once   was  a   pair   of  Friends,  who  loved   to 

chance 
Their  feet  in  any  by-way  of  Romance: 
They,  like  two  vagabond  schoolboys,  unafraid 
Of  stark  impossibilities,  essayed 
To  make  these  Penitent  and  Impenitent  Thieves, 
These  Pews  and  Gaunts,  each  man  of  them 

with  his  sheaves 
Of  humour,  passion,  cruelty,  tyranny,  life, 
Fit  shadows  for  the  boards;  till  in  the  strife 
Of  dream  with  dream,  their  Slaver-Saint  came 

true, 
And  their  Blind  Pirate,  their  resurgent  Pew 
(A  figure  of  deadly  farce  in  his  new  birth), 
Tap-tapped  his  way  from  Orcus  back  to  earth; 
And  so,  their  Lover  and  his  Lass  made  one, 
In    their    best    prose    this  Admiral   here    was 

done. 
One 

xciv 


THREE    PROLOGUES 

One  of  this  Pair  sleeps  till  the  crack  of  doom 
Where  the  great  ocean-rollers  plunge  and  boom : 
The  other  waits  and  wonders  what  his  Friend, 
Dead  now,  and  deaf,  and  silent,  were  the  end 
Revealed  to  his  rare  spirit,  would  find  to  say 
If  you,  his  lovers,  loved  him  for  this  Play. 


xcv 


EPICEDIA 


EPICEDIA 


TWO  DAYS 

{February  1 5— September  28,  1894,) 

To  V.  G- 

]HAT  day  we  brought  our  Beau- 
tiful One  to  lie 
|  In  the   green  peace   within   your 

gates,  he  came 
|  To  give  us  greeting,  boyish  and 
kind  and  shy, 
And,    stricken    as    we  were,    we    blessed    his 

name: 
Yet,  like  the  Creature  of  Light  that  had  been 

ours, 
Soon  of  the  sweet  Earth  disinherited, 
He   too   must   join,  even   with  the  Year's  old 

flowers, 
The  unanswering  generations  of  the  Dead. 
So  stand  we  friends  for   you,  who  stood  our 

friend 
Through  him  that  day;   for  now  through  him 

you  know 
That,  though  where  love  was  love  is  till  the 

end, 
Love,  turned  of  death  to  longing,  like  a  foe, 

Strikes 

xcix 


EPICEDIA 


Strikes :  when  the  ruined  heart  goes  forth 

to  crave 
Mercy    of    the    high,    austere,    unpitying 

Grave* 


EPICEDIA 


THOMAS  EDWARD  BROWN 

In  Memoriam  {Ob.   October  30,   1897.) 

^HE  looked  half- parson  and  half -skipper:  a 

quaint, 
Beautiful  blend,  with  blue  eyes  good  to  see, 
And  old-world  whiskers.    You  found  him  cynic, 

saint, 
Salt,  humourist,  Christian,  poet;  with  a  free, 
Far-glancing,  luminous  utterance;  and  a  heart 
Large  as  St.  Francis's  :  withal  a  brain 
Stored  with  experience,  letters,  fancy,  art, 
And  scored  with  runes  of  human  joy  and  pain* 
Till  six-and-sixty  years  he  used  his  gift, 
His  gift  unparalleled,  of  laughter  and  tears, 
And  left  the  world  a  high-piled,  golden  drift 
Of  verse :  to  grow  more  golden  with  the  years, 
Till  the  Great  Silence  fallen  upon  his  ways 
Break   into   song,   and  he  that  had  Love 

have  Praise. 


EPICEDIA 


GEORGE  WARRINGTON  STEEVENS 

T     _,         ,  London,  December  10,  1 869, 

Ladysmith,  January  15,  1900. 

I^WE   cheered   you   forth — brilliant   and   kind 
and  brave. 
Under  your  country's  triumphing  flag  you 
fell. 
It  floats,  true  heart,  over  no  dearer  grave — 
Brave    and    brilliant    and    kind,    hail   and 
farewell ! 


cu 


EPICEDIA 


LAST  POST 

$*THE  day's  high  work  is  over  and  done, 
And  these  no  more  will  need  the  sun: 
Blow,  you  bugles  of  England,  blow! 
These  are  gone  whither  all  must  go, 
Mightily  gone  from  the  field  they  won* 
So  in  the  workaday  wear  of  battle, 
Touched  to  glory  with  God's  own  red, 
Bear  we  our  chosen  to  their  bed* 
Settle  them  lovingly  where  they  fell, 
In  that  good  lap  they  loved  so  well; 
And,  their  deliveries  to  the  dear  Lord  said, 
And  the  last  desperate  volleys  ranged  and  sped, 
Blow,  you  bugles  of  England,  blow 
Over  the  camps  of  her  beaten  foe — 
Blow  glory  and  pity  to  the  victor  Mother, 
Sad,  O,  sad  in  her  sacrificial  dead! 


Labour,  and  love,  and  strife,  and  mirth, 
They  gave  their  part  in  this  goodly  Earth — 
Blow,  you  bugles  of  England,  blow! — 
That  her  Name  as  a  sun  among  stars  might 

glow, 
Till  the  dusk  of  Time,  with  honour  and  worth : 

That 


cm 


EPICEDIA 


That,  stung  by  the  lust  and  the  pain  of  battle, 

The  One  Race  ever  might  starkly  spread, 

And  the  One  Flag  eagle  it  overhead! 

In  a  rapture  of  wrath  and  faith  and  pride, 

Thus  they  felt  it,  and  thus  they  died; 

So  to  the  Maker  of   homes,  to   the   Giver   of 

bread, 
For  whose  dear  sake  their  triumphing  souls  they 

shed, 
Blow,  you  bugles  of  England,  blow, 
Though  you  break  the  heart  of  her  beaten  foe, 
Glory  and  praise  to  the  everlasting  Mother, 
Glory  and  peace  to  her  lovely  and  faithful  dead ! 


civ 


EPICEDIA 


REGINAE  DILECTISSIMAE  VIGTORIAE 

In  Memoriam.  (May  24,  1519— January  22,  1901.) 

£$  SCEPTRE  and  orb  and  crown, 

High  ensigns  of  a  sovranty  containing 

The  beauty  and  strength  and  state  of  half  a 

ivorld, 
Pass  from  her,  and  she  fades 
Into  the  old,  inviolable  peace* 


I 

She  had  been  ours  so  long 

She  seemed  a  piece    of   England.-    spirit    and 

blood 
And  message  England's  self. 
Home-coloured,  England  in  look  and  deed  and 

dream ; 
Like  the  rich  meadows  and  woods,  the  serene 

rivers, 
And   sea-charmed   cliffs  and  beaches,  that  still 

bring 
A  rush  of  tender  pride  to  the  heart 
That    beats   in  England's  airs  to   England's 

ends: 

August 

cv 


EPICEDIA 


August,  familiar,  irremovable, 

Like  the  good  stars  that  shine 

In  the  good  skies  that  only  England  knows: 

So  that  we  held  it  sure 

God's  aim,  God's  will,  Govs  way, 

When    Empire    from  her    footstool,    realm    on 

realm, 
Spread,  even  as  from  her  notable  womb 
Sprang  line  on  line  of  Kings; 
For    she    was    England  —  England   and    our 

Queen* 


II 

O,  she  was  ours !    And  she  had  aimed 

And  known  and  done  the  best 

And  highest  in  time :  greatly  rejoiced, 

Ruled  greatly,  greatly  endured.    Love  had  been 

hers, 
And  widowhood,  glory  and  grief,  increase 
In  wisdom  and  power  and  pride, 
Dominion,  honour,  children,  reverence: 
So  that,  in  peace  and  war 
Innumerably  victorious,  she  lay  down 
To  die  in  a  world  renewed, 

Cleared 


cvi 


EPICEDIA 


Cleared,  in  her  luminous  umbrage  beautified 

For  Man,  and  changing  fast 

Into  so  gracious  an  inheritance 

As  Man  had  never  dared 

Imagine.     Think,  when  she  passed, 

Think  what  a  pageant  of  immortal  acts, 

Done  in  the  unapproachable  face 

Of    Time    by   the   high,  transcending   human 

mind, 
Shone  and  acclaimed 
And  triumphed  in  her  advent!     Think  of  the 

ghosts, 
Think  of  the  mighty  ghosts :  soldiers  and  priests, 
Artists  and  captains  of  discovery, 
God's  chosen,  His  adventurers  up  the  heights 
Of  thought  and  deed — how  many  of  them  that 

led 
The  forlorn  hopes  of  the  World! — 
Her  peers  and  servants,  made  the  air 
Of  her  death -chamber  glorious!     Think  how 

they  thronged 
About  her  bed,  and  with  what  pride 
They  took  this  sister-ghost 
Tenderly  into  the  night !     O,  think — 
And,  thinking,  bow  the  head 
In 

cvii 


EPICEDIA 


In  sorrow,  but  in  the  reverence  that  makes 
The  strong  man  stronger — this  true  maid, 
True  wife,  true  mother,  tried  and  found 
An  hundred  times  true  steel, 
This  unforgettable  woman  was  your  Queen! 


in 

Tears  for  her — tears!     Tears  and  the  mighty- 
rites 
Of  an  everlasting  and  immense  farewell, 
England,  green  heart  of  the  world,  and  you, 
Dear  dcmi-ENGLANDS,  far-away  isles  of  home, 
Where   the   old   speech  is  native,  and  the  old 

flag 
Floats,  and  the  old  irresistible  call, 
The  watch-word  of  so  many  ages  of  years, 
Makes  men  in  love 
With  toil  for  the  race,  and  pain,  and  peril,  and 

death ! 
Tears,  and  the  dread,  tremendous  dirge 
Of  her  brooding  battleships,  and  hosts 
Processional,  with  trailing  arms;  the  plaint — 
Measured,  enormous,  terrible — of  her  guns ; 
The  slow,  heart-breaking  throb 
Of 

cviii 


EPICEDIA 


Of  bells;  the  trouble  of  drums;  the  blare 
Of  mourning  trumpets;  the  discomforting  pomp 
Of  silent  crowds,  black  streets,  and  banners-royal 
Obsequious!     Then,  these  high  things  done, 
Rise,  heartened  of  your  passion!     Rise  to  the 

height 
Of  her  so  lofty  life !     Kneel,  if  you  must ; 
But,  kneeling,  win  to  those  great  altitudes 
On  which  she  sought  and  did 
Her  clear,  supernal  errand  unperturbed! 
Let  the  new  memory 

Be  as  the  old,  long  love!     So,  when  the  hour 
Strikes,  as  it  must,  for  valour  of  heart, 
Virtue,  and  patience,  and  unblenching  hope, 
And  the  inflexible  resolve 
That,  come  the  World  in  arms, 
This  breeder  of  nations,  England,  keeping  the 

seas 
Hers  as  from  God,  shall  in  the  sight  of  God 
Stand  justified  of  herself 
Wherever  her  unretreating  bugles  blow! 
Remember  that  she  lived 
That   this   magnificent  Power  might   still  per- 

dure — 
Your  friend,  your  passionate  servant,  counsellor, 

Queen* 

cix 


EPICEDIA 


IV 

Be  that  your  chief  of  mourning — that! — 

England,  O  Mother,  and  you, 

The  daughter  Kingdoms  born  and  reared 

Of  England's  travail  and  sweet  blood; 

And  never  will  you  lands, 

The  live  earth  over  and  round, 

Wherethrough  for  sixty  royal  and  radiant  years 

Her  drum-tap  made  the  dawns 

English — Never  will  you 

So  fittingly  and  well  have  paid  your  debt 

Of  grief  and  gratitude  to  the  souls 

That  sink  in  England 'S  harness  into  the  dream: 

*  I  die  for  England's  sake,  and  it  is  well " : 

As  now  to  this  valiant,  wonderful  piece  of  earth, 

To  which  the  assembling  nations  bare  the  head, 

And  bend  the  knee, 

In  absolute  veneration — once  your  Queen* 


Sceptre  and  orb  and  crown, 

High  ensigns  of  a  sovranty  empaling 

The  glory   and  love   and  praise  of  a   whole 

half-world, 
Fall  from  her,  and,  preceding,  she  departs 
Into  the  old,  indissoluble  Peace* 


ex 


EPILOGUE 


EPILOGUE 

INTO  a  land 

I  Storm- wrought,  a  place  of  quakes, 
all  thunder-scarred, 

[Helpless,  degraded,  desolate, 

I  Peace,  the  White  Angel,  comes* 
Her  eyes  are  as  a  mother's*     Her  good  hands 
Are  comforting,  and  helping;  and  her  voice 
Falls  on  the  heart,  as,  after  winter,  spring 
Falls  on  the  world,  and  there  is  no  more  pain* 
And,  in  her  influence,  hope  returns,  and  life, 
And  the  passion  of  endeavour:  so  that,  soon, 
The  idle  ports  are  insolent  with  keels; 
The  stithies  roar,  and  the  miUs  thrum 
With  energy  and  achievement ;  weald  and  wold 
Exult;  the  cottage-garden  teems 
With  innocent  hues  and  odours;  boy  and  girl 
Mate  prosperously;  there  are  sweet  women  to 

kiss; 
There  are  good  women  to  breed.    In  a  golden 

fog, 
A  large,  full-stomached  faith  in  kindliness 
All  over  the  world,  the  nation,  in  a  dream 
Of   money   and   love  and  sport,  hangs  at  the 
paps 

Of 


cxi 


EPILOGUE 


Of  well-being,  and  so 

Goes  fattening,  mellowing,  dozing,  rotting  down 

Into  a  rich  deliquium  of  decay. 


Then,  if  the  Gods  be  good, 

Then,  if  the  Gods  be  other  than  mischievous, 

Down  from  their  footstools,  down 

With  a  million  -  throated  shouting,  swoops  and 

storms 
War,  the  Red  Angel,  the  Awakener, 
The  Shaker  of  Souls  and  Thrones ;  and  at  her 

heel 
Trail  grief,  and  ruin,  and  shame ! 
The  woman  weeps   her  man,  the  mother  her 


son, 


The  tenderling  its  father.     In  wild  hours, 

A  people,  haggard  with  defeat, 

Asks  if  there  be  a  God;  yet  sets  its  teeth, 

Faces  calamity,  and  goes  into  the  fire 

Another  than  it  was.     And  in  wild  hours 

A  people,  roaring  ripe 

With  victory,  rises,  menaces,  stands  renewed, 

Sheds  its  old  peddling  aims, 

Approves  its  virtue,  puts  behind  itself 

The 


cxii 


EPILOGUE 


The  comfortable  dream,  and  goes, 

Armoured  and  militant, 

New -pithed,  new-souled,  new-visioned,  up  the 

steeps 
To  those  great  altitudes,  whereat  the  weak 
Live  not*     But  only  the  strong 
Have  leave  to  strive,  and  suffer,  and  achieve. 

Worthing,  190t. 


CX111 


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